Week 7 Studs & Duds + Brown Tent, Ready to Roll - Fantasy Football Podcast for 10/21

to the fantasy footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Oh, welcome in. Monday edition of the fantasy footballers, Mike, the fantasy hitman, Jason Moore, Andy Holloway back with you. Another week of football, nearly in the books. We got a double header tonight for Monday night football, but I hope there's a lot of points scored. in tonight's games. We've got a, we've got at least one of our leagues where it's like, nobody scored fantasy points. It's, it was a weird weekend of like a handful of players doing all the work. Yeah, that's fair. If you had one of the studs, congratulations. Most people didn't do work. Yeah, and we had the storyline of 2024 continuing to rear it's ugly. Yep.

painful head, which is the injury bug. I mean, every single week you're having to make adjustments. I mean, this is part of not resting on your laurels at the draft. This is why we say you don't win your league at the draft because it's impossible to run the table with the team that you drafted. You need to make constant adjustments and pivots and then pivot again. It's also why we tell people, and hopefully if you're still listening, you're one of these people that. Maybe you got off to a bad start this year, but you didn't give up. We say that because the league changes every single week. And if you look at, you know, year after year after year and you look at who was good in the first half of the year and then who was good in the second half of the year, it's oftentimes like the complete reverse. So all these bad teams, all these players were busts. It's like, oh, no, now they're great. You know, you look at Mike's.

team in League of Record that when we started the first couple weeks we were talking about just the oh it was in shambles the annihilation of your roster how putrid whether by injury or performance and now all of a sudden you're you're rattling off a bunch of wins in a row and I think I think the Foot Clan wants to hear this as well I want to set up the stage here between this epic unbelievable matchup between you two gentlemen Andy and Mike are playing each other this week in the League of Record Mono, imano, and you would not believe that their current score in the League of Record, Andy is sitting there with 107.4 fantasy points. It's a really good score for two weeks or for two games left. For two games left. Mike is sitting with 107.4 fantasy points to the decimal they are tired. It's also a good score. Kyler Murray and James Connor are on Andy's team. Will they or will they not outscore?

the trifecta of J.K. Dobbins, Mark Andrews, and Marvin Harrison. That, to me, seems like a pretty fair fight. I do not know. I don't know either. I really like, you know, the Harrison-K. Tyler connection is a wrinkle. The fact Andrews is being depended upon to do anything in a fantasy matchup is a wrinkle. And J.K. Dobbins should destroy the Cardinals tonight. And the fact it's our home team that's going to decide a lot of what's going on. It's going to be great. You guys should go to the game. Just get tickets right now. Go tonight. Make new plans. But sit on opposite sidelines. Oh, for sure. You're enemies. With laser pointers. No, it should be fun. And if you don't have any drama going on tonight, you can follow along with the Mike versus Andy saga this evening. But, you know, there were some major injuries we're going to get into studs and duds to talk about. I believe what did Brooks just tell me? He said,

There have only been four quarterbacks so far with 20 plus fantasy points this week. And there's only one wide receiver with more than 20 fantasy points this week. That's what I was feeling. There's one guy who almost made it to 20 points who was started. I'm going to guess in 0.0% of leagues. Marcus Mariotta. Yeah. Well, that's a perfect summary of the week, too, because we had our fantasy face off. You two went with Gino Smith and D.K. Metcalf stacks. Amazing. They connected on touchdowns. I spent up on Jaden Daniel, $7,600. He's out for the game. I'm in first. Yeah. With no quarterback. You won. How? You know, the world will never know. All right. You guys out there, thank you for listening to the show, supporting the show, and reacting with us each and every weekend.

So let's get into your reactions, your submissions, this week's Monday, Punday, starting with the sophisticated good performances of the week, like Kareem of the Crop. Or a gorgeous pickens. How about kittles and pits? Kittles and pits. And the debut of Amari Super. Oh, and his departure allowed for David Winjoku. What? Or. Hustle Wilson. Yeah. That's a good name for him. And this is one of the reasons I'm in contention. Jamirical Gibbs. Another reason you're in contention. Woe Mixing. That's true. That tandem was very nice. We had bad performances, Mike. Yeah, but how about that jerk cousins? Oh, and Tyreek Nell. You got Blank Dell, septic tank dell. And tank smells. Let's just give him the trifact. Yeah, he deserves it.

Lamison Williams. Wait, Brock Turdy? Yeah, Brock Turdy. You didn't play against him in his rushing touchdowns. Three interceptions? I don't think he threw any. Devante Whiff. One of my personal favorites, Jaden Pete. Oh. Josh Sidham Downs. And another story of the weekend. Oh, why are we doing this to this guy? Goose Smith Schuster. The guy was hurt. Yeah, but Goose Goose instead of Juja is pretty good. That's high class comedy. We had, yeah, that's the show in a nutshell. Juju went out with zero points. Debo was dealing with an illness, zero points. Jordan Whittington. Illness? No, his was an injury, but I think he played like nine snaps and they're like, yeah. DiMario Douglas illness. Illness. You had a lot of players that were started across the leagues that were kind of.

A little bit questionable. You weren't sure about the health. And then, you know, if you decided to play it safe, congratulations. And if you didn't, then shame on you. But it works in both directions. Because, like, I played it safe on my personal lineup by not starting Ladd McConkey, who had his own little questionable injuries, his Monday night football. So, you know, I played a safe. I went Josh Downs. Nice. So all, just so you know, all of my wide receivers on my League of Record team. They combine for 0.8 fantasy points. That is impressive. Yeah, and I think I'm going to win. Well, I mean, that would be kind of the way that the Colts won this weekend with the same strategy. Right. Josh Downs does play for the Coles. Josh Downs did nothing for the Coles. Oh, Anthony Richardson, all he does is win. Yeah. The matchups for Richardson, very conducive to not scoring points and still winning. Man, he looked bad. He's looked bad the entire year.

Week one, week one, he looked great. I thought he looked great. I know his completion percentage was 47%, but remember the three of us after week one, we sat down and watched the film. He looked pretty good. He connected on, you know, deep bombs. He had a rushing touchdown. He looked like what we were hoping he was going to develop into, and then it's been the rest of the way. And that was just for clarity, that was a wet one. Just that was not like, oh, that wasn't solid. It's in my ears. I felt it. The last two games, or actually, let's just go three games for Anthony Richardson. Not that we won't get to the duds today. But the last three games where he's played 100% of snaps, he has thrown one total passing touchdown. He hasn't thrown a passing touchdown in three games in a row. If you only take the last three, 100% of snap games, he still has not scored 10 fantasy points in any one of those matchups. He was 42% passing yesterday.

10 for 24. He didn't get to 10 points and he ran the ball 14 times. Yeah. It's an impressive feat. And he was what, a fourth round pick, fifth round pick for people? He goes on the road to Houston, who is a pretty difficult matchup. At least they've got a good pass rush and a good secondary. Oh my gosh. Then he goes on the road to Minnesota, which is an outstanding defense. Oh, but don't worry. Then he plays Buffalo, New York Jets, and then Detroit and then New England and then Denver. Those are all great defenses. He's been on my trade block. I've had him like on the trade because he was the guy I had to go after in League of Record. And I'm going to tell you right now he's hitting waivers this week. No, people aren't giving up. No nibbles. I've been watching the bobber on the lake and it's not moving. You put the cast out there. Yeah, it's been there a long time. Ain't no bait on the line, my brother. I think the bait fell off. I really do. Eight consecutive matchups coming up against top tier defenses.

So, you know, yes, congratulations. You beat Miami. And there you go. Miami's not good. Well, they weren't good. I think the Cardinals are going to find a completely different Miami team next week when it is led by Tua. That's very true. All right. Let's get into Ready to Roll. Welcome to Ready to Roll, presented by Nissan. That's a mad jam. I don't think I've given you credit on that one, but that's good. That's good stuff. Yeah, it's an homage. Pretty on the nose. All right. So this week's ready to roll. I want to talk about target shifts. Like we did fantasy football. You're trying to stay on top of the trends. And we're at a point of the season now where we can look and be like, hey, this is the way that this season is currently trending? Is it going to stay that way? Are things shifting? And I mean, they're all, you know,

We know this, but it's really pointed out here of like the personnel and especially, you know, the coaching staff, that changes how the target share is going to go out. I was looking at the Falcons. The percentage of targets to the tight end position is way down compared to the Arthur Smith teams. You know that the Miami Dolphins, of course, that I'm not going to get them to them because they're just kind of broken right now. But the discussions I want to have was the Cincinnati Bengals, Joe Burrell at the beginning was peppering the tight ends. T. Higgins comes back. And everything is still kind of on the side of Jamar Chase is, you know, I took him first in our redraft of the redo of the draft because he's been fantastic. But at the same time, what I think people aren't totally realizing is since T. Higgins has returned.

The targets are normalized to the wide receiver position, and he has out-targeted Jamar Chase in four straight games. He's also ahead in first-read targets coming from fantasy points. So it's a, but while everything is Jamar, Jamar, Jamar, Jamar, where are we at with T-Higgins? T. Higgins over the last three games is on pace for 164 targets, 11317 yards, and a touchdown every single game. That's, you know, those are three good games. Everybody, you know, has good stretches. That's not prescriptive. Like, oh, that's what he's going to end up as. But that's just to illustrate how good he has been. And it's coincided with Joe Burrow playing some good ball. I don't know what it is about the Bengals and Joe Burrow. But we have enough years to know, like they just get off to slow starts. Yeah, it seems that way. It's unbelievable the frequency. I believe we brought this up after week two.

But I think over the last, whatever it is, like five years, Joe Burrow is one and nine in his first two weeks in the NFL. It's wild. And so they've gotten it together over the last month, started to win some games and playing well. I think T. Higgins is, you know, obviously a must start every single week. Yeah, but he projects to me as like a wide receiver, like the wide receiver 15. Is this a... is this a buy-high situation? I'm not counting the first game back from injury. He was reacclimating, but since then, he's seeing an average of 34% of the targets for the Cincinnati Bengals and Burrow is playing. Andy, where are you, like, are you, do you feel like this is now what's happening for T. Higgins? Are you trying to trade for him on the high? No. No, I'm not trading for him on the high. I mean, you have, you've had a two touchdown game. He scored this week.

He's an integral part of the offense. I feel like the discussion is always, you know, Devante Smith, Janlon Waddle, and T. Higgins are going to be linked forever as a trifecta of, you know, wide receiver 2s. Chase is going to give you the weak winning explosive games, and Higgins is going to be the, you know, very solid but needs the touchdown to give you a top 10 game. I mean, it's a nice run for him, for sure. I think we're also at the point in the season. Like, we don't do this at the draft. But we're seven weeks in. We're going into week eight. We've got a couple weeks left before normal leagues trade deadlines. And we are looking now towards that playoff schedule. We do know who are good defenses to throw against or not. And it's brutal. It's brutal for them. Their playoff weeks, 15, 16, and 17. At Tennessee, their team might not be good, but their defense is great, and especially their passing work with Legerius Sneed there. Cleveland, who's only got a shot based on their defense.

And then the Denver defense, which has been outstanding. At least they're at home for two of them. Yeah, with Cirtan there. And so, like, it's not, I don't, I think because of the schedule, I wouldn't trade high on him. I would still be willing to acquire him. But right now, the manager of T, they've been experiencing this. They're not, they're not selling them. Well, yeah, that's why are you, you know, like sometimes you have to buy high if you, if you believe that a player is going to continue. The other team I wanted to talk about because there was a.

An injury, I don't think we're confirmed yet on Brandon Ayyuk, but we all saw it. It's serious. Yeah, they're whispering ACL right now, and if they're whispering that, it's probably the ACL. But the thing about this team is, with Christian McCaffrey out, the target percentage going to running backs is down 10% right now. Even though we have the Jordan Mason, got the jugs machine, and that narrative has not translated into a like a Christian McCaffrey level of target share for him or anyone else who steps in, which is the wide receivers are getting everything. We're still a few weeks away from Christian McCaffrey's return. So there is, why I'm bringing it up is we're going to talk waivers, of course, tomorrow. But like this is ripe here of if the target share is going to continue to be really high for the wide receiver up from 56% last year to 63% right now. Like there is a real opportunity.

for the San Francisco 49ers. At the wide receiver position. At the wide receiver position, yeah. Do you have, does anyone have their schedule right in front of you? Yeah, I do. You've got the Los Angeles Rams. Is that next? No, I'm talking about playoffs. Okay. Playoffs 15, 16, 17, similar to T. Higgins. The Los Angeles Rams, the Miami Dolphins, and the Detroit Lions. I think, I would say that's. fairly middle of the pack. I think I think Mike was looking towards the weeks before CMC came back. Yeah, I want the short term boost here. Which, you know, Pierce saw got on the field yesterday. Ayuk's likely going to be out for the season. Debo is a still being brought up as a trade name to monitor for the trade deadline. The team probably won't do that now with the Ayuk injury. Those were rumors before the game. But, you know, the next week eight, Dallas, then the by then Tampa Bay and Seattle, it's,

A nice schedule. I would expect to see CMC maybe week 10. But, you know, next week, whether Joanne Jennings is healthy, Ricky Pearson, and the fact that this team, you know, you can use a jugs machine all you want, Mike, but that doesn't make you capable of running passing routes at the running back position. And that's what we're seeing. Like, this offense isn't the same without CMC. Obviously, if it was. That would be an indictment on CMC. He's too special. Sure. You know, so San Francisco, kind of a weird team right now. And, you know, Pearsall was a high draft pick. He was a second rounder, right? He was the first rounder. First rounder. Back in the first. That's a round earlier than the second. It is. So Pearsall, I think they have expectations. And now, you know, it was funny. Somebody picked him up on Sunday morning and spent Fab on him in our league of record. And no one else.

had picked him up or spent Fab that morning. And so it was an outrageous overspin. And now it seems like just a preemptive overspin because he will be going like on the waiver show tomorrow, Ricky Pearsall will be deserving of what was spent this past weekend for sure. Yeah, he'll be a major pickup. Don't forget about Jacob Cowling though as well. He got involved. He is a fellow rookie. This is that a move? That was cowling. That was he was verbing. It's fine. And so Jacob Cowling. Monday. He had 50 yards. He had a big 41-yard reception in the game. So we don't know where it's going, but to your point, they are throwing to the wider. Yeah, it's just pointing out that over the next few weeks while McCaffrey is out, it's like an even, it could be a bigger boost than just the injury to Brandon Ayyuk.

All right, that was ready to roll. Thanks again to our sponsor Nissan and the all new reimagined Nissan Kix. Redesigned with the bold new look. The Nissan Kix sports the latest tech like a Bose Personal Plus sound system. Head over to Nissan.com to learn more. And remember, Bose Personal Plus sound system is an available feature. Bose is a registered trademark of the Bose Corporation. News and notes from around the league. Presented by USAA Insurance. Brandon Ayukas. believed to have suffered a torn ACL in the loss of the Chiefs. This has been and continues to be an unmitigated disaster on every front for the 49ers, Brandon Ayuk and now fantasy managers. Ayuk wasn't in camp. Admittedly, kind of didn't know what he was doing with the holdout. Says he could have handled it way better. Didn't get the opportunity to play. Not that I'm associating a lack of reps with the ACL, but you never know.

and then didn't perform on the field when he got the opportunity through six weeks. He had one good game. Through seven weeks now he's hurt, goes out, and the team loses him after paying him and has a long road to recover. Score one for the sitting out player, though. I mean, I don't, I don't. Is that your view on it? Oh, 100% because he just tore his ACL this season. If he doesn't go and get the bag, which with him not, obviously if he didn't hold out, he would not have gotten paid. He got paid because he was holding out, and they needed a wide receiver. You know, they were looking at trading them and whatnot. So my point is it sucks for the 49ers, for sure. But for Brandon Ayuk, you know, I don't think holding out is what caused an ACL injury this far into the season. So the irony is he didn't get paid more by holding out because he ended up having to accept their offer. And they were negotiating with him before the holdout. So I think it would be like, you know.

A little debatable on the order of operations there. But I guess it's good for him that he got the money. But, I mean, it's hard for me to say that in these situations where the 49ers just shelled out all that guaranteed money. And then they don't have the player that they wanted. No, I know your refs and owners. And so I get it. You know, we know who's feeling real bad for those the salary cap. So in that in that case, you're thrilled for Deshaun Watson's what you're saying. No. No, that's what I heard. Wait, how did we get there? Is it because he's got guaranteed money? Yeah, he's out. And then now the ownership and the team doesn't get any of the playing on the field. And that's what you said you're into. I'm not sure. That's what I said. That is exactly what you said. I don't think that's a big league. How is that a different situation? He's a, that's a different human story. Full blown different sitch. But we can hop to that. Literally identical. Season ending injury for a player you guaranteed money to.

identical situation. Well, he didn't hold out in order to try to get a contract that he didn't have. He came in and has had this contract for years, but the league held him out. Deshawn Watson, we saw it right away. Like if you were watching the game, they had the camera on the back of the calf and you could see the Aaron Rogers pop. And you knew immediately, like, you can diagnose that in one second. He tore his Achilles. If it wasn't for this crazy contract, I think we would all think maybe that was the last snap this. poor performing quarterback would play in his career. However, he's still got years left on this contract. You know, players, James is coming out and, you know, people from the Browns organization supporting Watson. And so this is he's done. So there is a lot of fantasy implication here from who's the backup. Dorian Thompson Robinson was the backup this week. He got injured, but it's not considered serious. So they're going to see if he can grip a ball this week.

James Winston had been the backup up until this week. He got some play in this game after Dorian Thompson Robinson got injured. And then what happens to the receiving targets? Jerry Judy and Cedric Tillman, who had kind of a breakout game. And of course, David Najoku, a lot to discuss. We'll get into, I think, most of the details on the waiver show tomorrow about specifics. No, Jaden Daniels left in the first quarter. The first quarter. And it was the rib injury. X-rays negative. The game was out of hand, and he didn't have to come back in. His mommy said he's fine. That's not a joke. That's not a joke. No, it was actual news. She was actually one of the first people to report. That was early. People are wondering how it's going. We haven't heard an update. Is he going to return to the game? And then Mama tweeted out, he's fine. So I don't know if she got a text. But this is good news from like, I would imagine if she's tweeting that out that he doesn't have broken ribs.

At that point, by the time he would have came back in the game, it was already like that game was out of hand. D.K. Metcalf left with a knee injury. Mike McDonald said we're optimistic. It doesn't look too bad. He got carted off. We all watched it on the TV screen, which you don't like to see your player carted off. It wasn't to use the restroom. Not too. Not this time. Well, I mean, you could have been both. That's true. He could have needed to tinkle. Yeah. I probably did. I mean, he's hydrating. X-rays into tinkle. x-rays and a tinkle i wonder if they got a toilet in the x-ray room just for those you know get them out quicker get them back to the field quicker uh there's just toilets everywhere back there's just drains on the ground corners of all rooms have drains we have a blue tent for medical we really need like a

Like a yellow tint. Oh, a little toilet potty pop-up room. No, there should be two. A yellow tint and a brown tint. Oh. And you see which one they go into. Yeah, Lamar needed the brown tent back in the day. I remember that was the waddle to the locker room. That was an all-timer. Anyways, getting back to the injury. Three tents. For D.K. Metcalf. He's going in the brown tent. We're not sure what he's doing there. He's been in the brown tent's a long time, Bob. He's been there 5 minutes and 45 seconds. This is a bad one. But D.K. McCabe at this point, they're optimistic. It doesn't look too bad. That does not mean he's not going to miss time. I think that means that this doesn't look like a season ender, which is great. TBD on more information, but we will need it. He's been really good. I hope he is okay. I've got some shares of Metcalfe. Aiden O'Connell broke his right thumb in the loss of the Rams. The Gardner-Minshu experience begins again for the Raiders and their one receiver.

Yeah, it's a four to six week injury for O'Connell, so he will go to IR and we got a month of Gardner. Tyler Huntley left early with a right shoulder injury in the Miami game. Two is expected to return to practice and has a chance to return in week eight against the Cardinals. If you can picture the meme of the undertaker sitting up in the casket and apply it to every single player on the entire Miami offensive tour returns, that would be. Probably appropriate. Hopefully he comes back wearing that guardian helmet. I assume he will since his teammate who just had a concussion, Devon A. Chan was wearing it. I'm sorry. He looked like Darth helmet. He's already a smaller, felt guy. That's the problem. If he was an offensive lineman, like, I think all the offensive linemen probably should be in guardian caps. But it won't look weird. But when you're a tiny, like.

The issue with A. Chan as an NFL player is only his size. He's a tiny guy. He's too small to play that position, you know, historically speaking. When you look at the metrics of all running back. It's the height. He's short. He's tiny. He's 5'9. He's a full NBA jam character with the Guardian helmet on. Big head mode? You put in the code and you got the big head mode. It's so funny to watch him run. But I'm glad. Do they make different sizes of the Guardian? Like, can you go double? Can you go triple guardian? I, you know, if you can, Tua should do that. Two, I should do it. Yeah. I will say this. You can't lift his head off the ground. I've got A. Chan on a handful of leagues, one of my guys. And I loved seeing him in the guardian helmet. I mean, I was like, yes, sir. Yeah, protect that brain, man. That's right. Yeah, I mean, I would put spikes on him if I could, like his shoulder pads. Wait, put spikes on the helmet? No, put spikes on all of his pads.

Just made that's going to be illegal. I know that I would do it. I know that's a big ref thing to say. Right. You are big ref. Spikes and all. You guys want entertainment. Are you not entertained? Yeah, I take back my apology. I'm big refs again. All right. Debo, we talked about it. Pop Douglas and other players leaving due to injury. And then we had we had the full gamut of Jason panic attacks happening here in the studio because. David Montgomery went down with a knee injury. He was limping off the field. Jason had basically already written a eulogy for him. I've lost. He sent out funeral invitations. I've lost everyone on my main league. And all I had left was David Montgomery. But he came back. He did. And it was awesome. Obviously, if you're disappointed with the performance on the day, you just got to wash it away because he got injured and missed a chunk of that game and wasn't as utilized. But.